


Moments of Regret

by justira



Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: Braska's Pilgrimage, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-19
Updated: 2007-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justira/pseuds/justira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A set of three drabbles on Braska, Jecht, and Auron's regrets, or lack thereof.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moments of Regret

**Author's Note:**

> **Title**: Moments of Regret: Ascending Spiral, Heavy Shit, Old Friends  
> **Fandom**: Final Fantasy X  
> **Theme**: Regret ([lj]ff_100) / Moment in time (74) ([lj]pyre_flies)  
> **Characters/Pairings**: Auron/Braska/Jecht  
> **Rating**: PG-13 for implied naughty  
> **Words**: 129 + 178 + 125 = 432  
> **Crit/Feedback**: Both are very welcome =)  
> **Notes**: I started this for the [lj[ff_100 FFX/Regret challenge but got frustrated and dropped it for a while. I came back, edited it, restructured it to fit both themes ([lj]ff_100 and [lj]pyre_flies), and finished the last part, and now I'm mostly satisfied. I have additional gripes and notes below.

**Ascending Spiral**

There is little room for regret.

Little enough room for _him_ in the hollow space inside his robes, the cold distance between people's looks and where he stands, the long laden silences between terse words.

But the pause of a hitched breath, Auron's looks, Jecht's rough laugh, the tangled rush of hands, heat, sweat, swearing, the sharp press of teeth, kisses hard with anger and desperation — those are full of _him_, of _them_.

After, looking up into the boundless sky through the tangle of Jecht's limbs and Auron's hair he thinks he can fill even that void: expectations, Yevon, judgments, spirals (in green eyes), Yuna, Yuna, Yuna.

But Jecht mutters against his ear and Auron's breaths are too even for sleep, and there is no room for regret.

 

__________________________

 

**Heavy Shit**

The heavy feeling in his gut isn't any damn regret or guilt or whatever else.

It's like that dry taste before a blitz game — without the adrenaline rush. It's — it's like thinking of Tidus, or Zanarkand. Without the moping. _Auron_ mopes.

It's not _fear_, because he can laugh at fear and yell and swear at it. And lately it's always there, heavy like an anchor pulling him down to this world even as Braska pulls him in and he pushes Auron down. Okay, he laughs then, too (mostly at Auron, the prude), and yells (also at Auron), and swears (he wants to say that's at Auron too, but Braska's got a hell of a way of—).

The heat of fingers dragging uneven trails across the scars on his back, the wet slide of mouths, hard muscle, piercing grey eyes, hot and clear — hell, that's not scary.

He knows what Braska would call that weight, making Auron snort and Jecht laugh. All saintly-like, right before he'd pull the both of them in for another go. He'd call it happiness.

 

__________________________

 

**Old Friends**

He is intimately familiar with regret.

When he was a young fool he thought he would die of it.

Ha. Life left him. Regrets did not. Old friends.

But when the old spheres show Tidus his father, Auron remembers Jecht pulling them down on top of him, laughing and threatening them with a sphere Auron would later throw into the Moonflow. And when the pyreflies show Yuna her father, Auron thinks of their last night outside Zanarkand, and Braska reaching up to the sky for a stray pyrefly that wouldn't remember them.

Jecht's son has killed him, and Braska's daughter is performing the Sending. Auron bows his head, and smiles. More a fool than he'd thought, to believe his friends so few and so old. And so unforgiving.

 

__

_End._

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N**: I had a really hard time with this set. I started writing it on paper, so I had little conception of the word count. I'd originally intended for it to be my usual kind of triple drabble: a set of three 100-word, self-contained drabbles that work well individually and better together. I hope I succeeded on the last three counts, but I failed utterly on the first. I'm very proud of how far I manged to cut these, since they started out at over 200, about 300, and about 150, respectively. I'm still unhappy with a few small parts in each, but I don't think I can cut them down further, and I think altogether they do almost what I wanted them to.
> 
> Things I'm pleased with: I think I managed to capture a decent voice for each of the three. Initially I was insecure about this and included their names ("... in Braska's life", "According to Jecht...", "Auron is intimately...") but I decided in the end the voices were strong enough to drop the names, and I think this was a good decision. I hope it was actually well-founded. I'm also proud that I manged to layer in most of the connections I wanted to. I was very worried that the Auron one wouldn't be able to pull off tying them all together and bringing the various themes and ideas to a conclusion, but I think it did okay here. I'm still insecure about it, but I think it could have been worse.
> 
> I'm unhappy that I didn't manage to make these true 100-word drabbles, but I think I did well on cutting them down, so I guess I'm not too unhapppy there. There's also a few areas I think turned out a little awkward. Feel free to try and point anything of the sort out -- I'd be interested in seeing if the places you find were the same as mine, and I'm always open to feedback =)


End file.
